The Big Rare Debate

[TheMadEvil]

I posted this in another thread, but I'd like to reiterate it:

I don't like the idea of rare cards for this game. For other CCGs, you can go to the store and buy the singles you want for an increased cost. That is not possible here, which puts many decks and ideas out of the realm of possibility for much of the community. What I would propose is the same thing as many other games use for 'uber-rarity' - have all the cards available at their normal rates, but have Alternative versions available as 'Uber Rares'...Alternative artwork, wording, background color, whatever...maybe even foils or holographs. I always thought it was interesting playing against a deck made completely of foils, knowing that I could make the same deck but it would never be as pretty.
I've always been in favor of having all cards at least mostly available to all players...Alternative versions are the way that I have always been most in favor of, since as a non-collector (I play for the fun of the game, not the collectibility), I don't care about having these cards, but I DO care about having all of the deck options available to me.

[Clathius]

Sooner or later this game is going to have to decide if it is a card game or a grinding game.

Once you decide that, the answers become fairly obvious.

[TheMadEvil]

Sooner or later this game is going to have to decide if it is a card game or a grinding game.

Once you decide that, the answers become fairly obvious.

^ This ^

excellently well spoken, I commend you

[Essence]

Rarity is something that is supposed to make new players look at experienced players and say "Wow, that's cool!". 

It does exactly that right now.  Sure, you can farm t50 for rares, but it's not like you turn around and get 6 of every weapon and shard before you can build your first FG killer.  Hell, I've been playing this game since 0.4 and I still only have 3 Tridents, 4 Morning Glory, 4 Vampire Stiletto, etc. 

Nymphs are the new paradigm for rares, and I like it: there's no grinding, just random chance -- and there's a mechanic that allows anyone access to them if they're willing to pay the price (play Water; sacrifice a pillar.)  They are the chance for experienced players to say "Wow!" all over again.  I'm 100% down with that.

I'd even say that there should be a set of rares that can only be obtained by random chance in FG slots when you EM an FG (like Shard of Divinity, but that turn into Relics in any other slot spin), so that there's a "Wow" for really upper-level peeps like JMizzle.  Maybe, just for fun, a third level of Dragon in each element that has a special skill...or something.


Basically, I like it the way it is.

[MrSexington]

Rarity is something that is supposed to make new players look at experienced players and say "Wow, that's cool!". 

It does exactly that right now.  Sure, you can farm t50 for rares, but it's not like you turn around and get 6 of every weapon and shard before you can build your first FG killer.  Hell, I've been playing this game since 0.4 and I still only have 3 Tridents, 4 Morning Glory, 4 Vampire Stiletto, etc. 

Nymphs are the new paradigm for rares, and I like it: there's no grinding, just random chance -- and there's a mechanic that allows anyone access to them if they're willing to pay the price (play Water; sacrifice a pillar.)  They are the chance for experienced players to say "Wow!" all over again.  I'm 100% down with that.

I'd even say that there should be a set of rares that can only be obtained by random chance in FG slots when you EM an FG (like Shard of Divinity, but that turn into Relics in any other slot spin), so that there's a "Wow" for really upper-level peeps like JMizzle.  Maybe, just for fun, a third level of Dragon in each element that has a special skill...or something.


Basically, I like it the way it is.

In other words, it's a grinding game...?

Instead of "Wow, that's cool!" when seeing a rare card, I'd rather have other players say, "Wow, you beat me!" on an even playing field.

The above poster said it well; it's either a grinding game or a card game. 

(Either one is a legitimate game.)

[Essence]

Actually, there's absolutely nothing that keeps it from being both. 

See, Elements is a COLLECTIBLE card game -- but unlike YuGiOh or Magic, you don't pay cash to collect cards -- you pay time.  Time spent grinding.   As you invest more time into the game, your options and power increase.  Just like spending money on Magic cards.

In Elements, Time really is Money!


(And Money is the root of all evil...so Aether is obviously the root of all good!)

[PhuzzY LogiK]

Actually, there's absolutely nothing that keeps it from being both. 

See, Elements is a COLLECTIBLE card game -- but unlike YuGiOh or Magic, you don't pay cash to collect cards -- you pay time.  Time spent grinding.   As you invest more time into the game, your options and power increase.  Just like spending money on Magic cards.

In Elements, Time really is Money!

I see where you're going with this...but I have to disagree.  In Magic, once you get the basic idea of gameplay down, you can say to yourself, "I want to play Deck X,  which will cost me $N.  Is that worth it, or should I change out some cards?"  But, by and large,  you can play any deck you want, so long as you pay for it.

In Elements, you instead say, "I want to play deck X, I will grind N hours and HOPE I get the cards I need."  Your options are always limited by the fact some cards can only be acquired through chance.  And yes, as time tends towards large amounts, you can "pay" for your cards, but this is not practical.  You could be an experienced player who just never happened to win a certain card, thus you don't have the full chance to build any deck you want.

[midg3333]

how about making different variants of rare cards? For example, remove the option to upgrade rare cards but do this:
rares won from the oracle, or false gods are the upgraded version.
rares won from pvp, top50 or lvls 0-3 are the non-upgraded version
rares mon from half-bloods can obviously be either

this means that you can still get these rares from t50 rarefarms, but you need to either be really lucky, or have a good deck/strategy to get the better version.

-OR-

make it so you can only challenge each person in the weekly top-50 once (obviously, if somebody new gets into the top-50, you can fight them once as well, so it's not limited to precicely 50 games). This way you will only ever get each rarefarm once per week, making them much less 'farmable'.

-OR-

make some form of rarer card that can only be obtained by, say, a different form of currency. This might be obtained through falso god wins (either 1 token per game, or 1 per mastery win, or something like that) or maybe some other way. But just make sure it isn't a card, so it can't be put into a t-50 farm. Or maybe even obtain the tokens by completing daily quests (for example: beat all false gods at least once. If you had a quest like that, you would probably have to have a way of selecting which god you face, at the cost of not getting any spins at the end or something). Or you could get the rarer cards through fighting gods with certain handicaps (like some of the ones in chris kang's trainer, or something similar).

By the way, yes i am aware that the top 2 ideas would disadvantage new players because the old players already have rares...but it does seem like it may be the best way. You can't just not deal with an issue because the solution disadvantages someone, and over time, i'm sure it will balance out eventually.